F1 sets new U.S. viewing record in 2025 with 135% overall growth in final year with ESPN
The 2025 Formula 1 season attracted record viewing figures for the United States as ESPN concluded its eight-year run as the sport’s American broadcaster.
The season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – a three-way title decider between Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri – averaged 1.5 million viewers on ESPN, peaking at 1.8m, based on Nielsen Big Data + Panel data. That marked the 16th event viewership record out of the 24 races in 2025, while 21 of the 24 had year-on-year increases – only Miami, Singapore and Brazil did not register an increase.
The full season average of 1.3m per race is a new record for F1 in the U.S., beating the previous mark of 1.21m from the 2022 season, and marking a 135% increase on ESPN’s first season of its latest spell.
This was the final season of ESPN’s eight-year run as F1’s broadcaster in the U.S., and the sport saw significant viewing figure growth during that time. The inaugural season back on the network that first broadcast F1 – the first race aired in America was on ABC in 1962, while ESPN also held the rights from 1984-97 – attracted an average of 554,000 per race in 2018, rising to 672,000 the following year.
The COVID-hit 2020 season saw an average of 608,000 tune in for each race, before a big jump to 948,000 in 2021 for the season-long championship fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
ESPN has averaged more than a million per race since that point, with the past two years seeing an average of 1.1m, having offered commercial-free coverage since the second race of its stint.
Liberty Media took over F1 in early 2017 and committed to a greater focus on the U.S. market, that now boasts three races in Miami, Austin and Las Vegas. ESPN was granted the rights that were previously held by NBC the year after Liberty’s takeover, and 2025’s viewing figures mark a 142% increase on the final year of the NBC deal.
While ESPN bid to retain the rights, next year the F1 broadcasts give way to streaming on Apple TV, with Apple’s senior vice president of services Eddy Cue recently saying the platform has “significantly more” than the previously estimated 45 million subscribers.
